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Wednesday, 20 February 2013

Supernatural, fandom and more grey hairs

So,
on Supernatural recently, there was a scene where Dean was being followed
by another man. The man was stalking him for information, Dean approached him
and demanded to know why the man, Aaron, was following him.

Aaron (lying) responds that he thought they had a moment
(eyes crossed across a crowded room moment) and was hoping to, basically, hook
up. Dean chokes, stutters, splutters, fumbles around and desperately extricates
himself from the situation.

Yeah, I’ve seen that joke before. We’ve actually seen it
on Supernatural before – Dean comes into contact with gay or bisexual men and
is supremely uncomfortable and weirded out. It’s old, it’s depressing and it’s
annoying on a show that in 8 seasons has only managed one decent portrayal of a
Lesbian, Charlie for a massive 2 episodes (that’s 2 episodes out of 163, let’s
be clear here), and repeatedly used gay men as a butt of jokes.

And the slashers?

“ZOMG DEAN IS CANONICALLY BISEXUAL!?”

What?

He was spluttering and virtually non-verbal and all but
sprinted from the room but because he didn’t outright say “I’m straight, how
very dare you?!” that makes him bi? The show is now magically inclusive?!

Really?

It's not like, in
163 episodes and counting, they didn't have ample time and repeated
opportunity to establish Dean as bi, among all his hookups among all his
heart to heart talks, among all the monster-of-the-week episodes - more
than enough opportunities untaken. But why would the writers make one
of the main characters GBLT on this show when they know fandom will give
them inclusion kudos anyway?